CONSULATE APPOINTMENT #1 My first appointment was in July, plenty of time before my September departure date, so I thought. I gathered up all my documents and the required funds to apply and drove up to San Francisco. When I spoke to the representative at the window for my appointment things went smoothly enough until one of the final documents. Sidenote: The people at the consulate can sometimes come off as insensitive or cold, but just a piece of advice don't take it the wrong way some of the things in how they talk can comes off as mean when translated to English. They don't mean to sound harsh, I hope. Further advice is to make sure you have everything they list on the Visa application form. Serious double, triple check because it's really no fun driving back and forth to the consulate as your departure date looms. Anyway this appointment ended with the lady telling me I needed to get a different type of Visa despite my clear indication that I would need a student Visa. No amount of pleading would convince her otherwise and I was sent packing.
CONSULATE APPOINTMENT #2 Immediately after the first failed appointment I scheduled another because they have limited meeting times. The next one was for August and I was thinking to myself I still have plenty of time before my flight late in September. I went back over all of my documents and called my contact in Spain to make sure everything was good. I trekked back up to the consulate and met with someone new this time and I had hoped this time it would go more smoothly. The guy looked over all of my documents and once again we were almost through to the end but he said that I was missing a stamp on one of my documents. In my head I was thinking this guys can't be serious and that luckily there's a glass pane between us. He said that my background check, already approved by the FBI, needed to be approved once more by the Secretary of state. Luckily he took all of the documents that were ready and gave me a reference number so that all I had to do was get this document signed and bring it back no appointment necessary. At this point I'm thinking that I may not ever get these documents processed yet alone make it onto my flight.
CONSULATE APPOINTMENT #3 A few more weeks go by as I had sent in the background check to the office in Washington, DC but when I got the mail back it was just a note saying sorry "sent to wrong location." They essentially wasted two weeks of my time just to send back a note saying that I mailed it in to the wrong place. I definitely learned a lot about the government and how much extra time to give things to process. It wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't taken so long or I knew that you had to get the certification done in your home state. (All you future Visa applicants out there had better be taking notes). Also this was frustrating because by the time this came in the mail my flight was two and a half weeks away. I took it for what it was and accepted that I couldn't change the facts then took the document on a journey to Sacramento where I could get the stamp I needed in person. The waiting time for mail in Apostille stamps in about a week and I didn't have the time or patience at this point to risk that.
Off to see the secretary of State
What's funny about this whole process, which I currently reminded myself, is that I was doing all this driving around and panicking and throwing things all for a single sheet of paper. I think the laughter is what kept me sane throughout this process. Also funny was that after three weeks of trying to get this paper stamped the stamp process took about three minutes to finish. More laughter. So now I set off back to the consulate full of confidence that this was the last step on my road to having a Visa in hand. Can you guess what happened next? I get to the consulate and yet again another form was mysteriously in need of adjustment. When the lady said that I'd have to come back again I just about lost it and thew the table through the window. Luckily there was a little girl playing with some dolls next to me and I didn't want to traumatize her. I calmly exchanged one fixed document for a "damaged" one and headed home.
CONSULATE APPOINTMENT #4 The aforementioned document detailed my health status and indicated that I didn't have any infections diseases. Even though at the first meeting this document was just fine apparently things change from employee to employee. Appointment #3 was on a Monday so I drove back from SF to Stanford. Literally the only thing wrong with the documents was the fact that the words "International Health Regulations 2005" were not on the page. Even though it said I don't have any diseases, that didn't matter I just needed those four words. I tried looking online to find the document to no avail. So just in case any Spanish government officials are reading this, let's just say I had to pull a play out of the bag of tricks to get this done. After that I went to find the doctor in sports med that signed off on my paper the first time. And to my elation he was on leave. Great. So now I'm asking the front desk to ask literally anyone with M.D after their name to sign these papers for me. Luckily one of the other doctors was in and he got a nice laugh out of the story I told him as to why I had to have these documents singed yet again. The next day, 15 days before my flight, I went back to SF and to my astonishment they took the documents. Every last one. #win
Monday September 23 - Visa in Hand
Tuesday September 24 - Day of Celebration
Friday September 27 - Spain!
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